The RegenNarration

After recording with Bill and Chloe at Begin Again Farm for last week’s episode , Bill happened to drop word of an upcoming festival. And not just any festival, but the 48th annual running of the Common Ground Country Fair . It happened on 20-22 September this year, in the aptly named Unity, Maine, about 40 miles north of Bill and Chloe’s place. The Fair draws 60,000 people, features all kinds of...

There’s a ‘so-called’ battle for rural America at the heart of the coming federal election. But what if it needn’t be a battle? And in fact, what if heart is what’s really at stake? People who love their places – places, by the way, that constitute 20% of the vote, and 97% of the land in this country. After the recent Vice-Presidential debate here in the US, featuring two men speaking to their roo...

This is one of my favourite conversations, and it starts a mini-series of sorts. I’ve had many listeners ask how things feel in this US election year. So, after months speaking with all kinds of people as we travelled through half the states of this country, throughout October, as the election approaches, I’ll offer what we’ve observed, in conversation with people doing some of the more outstandin...

This mid-week mail run comes to you from Savannah Georgia, as a hurricane nears the Florida coast and the storms begin here in advance of it. As usual with these brief episodes, I reply to text messages from listeners through the new link in our show notes. And this time I also announce the recent winners of the book giveaway. That’s before sharing some concerning news for independent podcast crea...

A new holistic farming festival is about to launch back home in Australia. Inspired by the famed Groundswell in the UK, GROUNDED! lands in beautiful southern Tasmania on the 4th and 5th of December - with a pre-festival event on the 3rd of December too. It’s billed as a cross between a world class conference, an informative field day and a cracking food festival. This is big news, and a huge under...

After recording the main episode with Kelsey, we headed out for a very special tour through regenerating cultural and natural grasslands. We pick it up amongst the layered stories around the nearby Missouri River / Lake Oahe. That sets up a sense of the power in arriving at the family’s re-introduced Sundance grounds. Soon after, we witness Kelsey finding Indian grass back on the ranch for the fir...

Kelsey Scott is a 4th generation cow producer and 125th generation land steward at DX Ranch , on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation in South Dakota. Kelsey is a Lakota woman, citizen of the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe, Chief Strategy Officer for the Intertribal Agriculture Council , owner of a direct-to-consumer regenerative beef operation DX Beef , part of the education programs her family runs,...

The extraordinary Churchtown Dairy in New York is restoring dairy farming in a context where such farms are still closing around them. They are doing it with nature, family, food and festival at its heart. With organic and biodynamic methods, they are keeping cattle together in their families to amazing benefit, cultivating myriad farm products including medicinal plants, restoring a diverse lands...

The evening before we recorded the main episode with Pedro, we went out on the Plains to shepherd the buffalo to their next patch. This is a rare chance to hear one of the world’s most respected bison wranglers – and the animals themselves – at work. And there were some very special moments too, in this condensed 20-minute special extra to episode 220. The wind can be mighty on the Plains, and as...

Pedro Calderon-Dominguez is regarded as an extraordinary horseman. Though as fate would have it, his life took a series of unexpected turns, through wildlife ecology as the first to further Aldo’s Leopold’s work with black bears, into holistic management with some of the legends in Mexico and beyond, and ultimately into working with buffalo. Now he’s regarded by some as the world’s top bison wrang...

This week we’ve got some special news, and a mail run. That is, I reply to some of the text messages coming from you through the new link in our episode show notes. And I’m coming to you from the extraordinary Churchtown Dairy in New York, after attending an event last night at their amazing barn venue, with guest-of-honour, the globally renowned author and previous podcast guest, Judith Schwartz...

Aldo Leopold has profoundly influenced the modern conservation and regeneration movement. He affected nearly every national conservation initiative in the US during the 1930s and 40s, and this year marks the 75th anniversary of his classic book A Sand County Almanac. Hard to believe now that it was rejected many times before being finally accepted just one week before his death. Since then, the bo...

Cole Mannix was featured in the New York Times a couple of months ago as part of a series called ‘Making It Work’, about ‘small-business owners striving to endure hard times’. The title read: Montana Has More Cows Than People. Why Are Locals Eating Beef From Brazil? The by-line followed: ‘Cole Mannix, [co-founder] of Old Salt Co-op , is trying to change local appetites and upend an industry contro...

Allan Savory is a legend of regenerative agriculture - the ongoing force behind holistic management, a movement that has featured in so many stories on the podcast. Indeed, as we’ve travelled across the US / Turtle Island, we continue to hear such stories (including in last week's episode ). Longer-term listeners might remember my conversation with Allan on the podcast back in 2020 . It still...

In episode 164 with Nicole Masters and Meagan Lannan (the infamous ‘armoured butts’ episode) we talked about the new ‘train the trainers’ program in agroecological systems thinking they’d created, called CREATE . This time, we visit them at home, as they gather for the first reunion of the program. Fifteen highly accomplished alumni from incredible and varied places gathered at Meagan’s beautiful...

A number of you have said last week’s episode was one of the best, with legendary Bioneers founders Nina Simons and Kenny Ausubel. So in honour of that, and in case you missed it, or haven’t heard through to the end, this week’s release is an excerpt of the last 20 minutes or so of a very rare public conversation with the two of them together. We pick it up where the conversation shifted gear, whe...

This treasured and unique conversation is with the legendary founders of Bioneers , Nina Simons and Kenny Ausubel . Bioneers is a cultural phenomenon - an innovative nonprofit organization that has been highlighting breakthrough solutions for restoring people and planet - for 34 years. What started as a somewhat reluctant conference in 1990 has become all sorts of other notable projects, including...

Andrew Stone and I continued on for another 15 minutes off-record, but with the recorder still on. The conversation was so fascinating that I asked him if he was ok with it going out to you. So here’s a bonus 15 minutes with Andrew, where we went on to talk about his visit to Wendell Berry and their conversation on technology, some more uncanny connections, being part of the DMT studies in the ‘90...

Andrew Stone has been dubbed the ‘solar mystic farmer’, as a pioneering solar passive designer/builder, former software developer of some of the commonplace apps today working alongside luminaries like Steve Jobs, regenerative farmer with treasured links to Wendell Berry and his family, key presence in the psychedelics resurgence, and a generally fascinating guy. That was as much illustrated by th...

How does a local radio show run with and for children become a global phenomenon - with plenty of adult listeners too? All the more in an age of media disruption and decline, with the ongoing struggle of not only mainstream media models, but public and alternative ones too. In just six years, The Children’s Hour is approaching a listenership of one million people, heard on demand as a weekly podca...

Our final episode last year was titled Achieving Consensus and Commitment to do the ‘Impossible’ . It featured Jeff Goebel, and drew an enormous response from listeners, a number of whom have continued to work with Jeff since. So when I knew we were heading to the States, I reached out to Jeff. And soon after, he got in touch to say he was going to be hosting a workshop soon - would I like to come...

The Navajo Diné Nation is the biggest First Nation in the US, crossing Arizona, Utah and New Mexico. There we connected with Diné elder James Skeet, and his brilliant wife Joyce - descendant of award-winning Mennonite farmers in Pennsylvania. Together, they founded Spirit Farm, and the educational non-profit Covenant Pathways . Spirit Farm is a demonstration and experiential farm focused on healin...

Steve Mushin is an award-winning industrial designer and inventor, and an old mate from when we both were part of the team at CERES – the legendary community environment park in inner Melbourne. He’s also now the author of children’s book ‘ Ultrawild: An audacious plan to rewild every city on earth ’ (Allen & Unwin). Eight years in the making, it's an intricately illustrated book explorin...

A couple of weeks ago, I received some big news. The California State Assembly unanimously passed what’s been dubbed the ‘Beaver Bill’ . Yes, California is bringing the beaver back. For those who might not be fully across how big this news is, the beaver is a keystone species that assists in restoring watershed and ecosystem functions in areas that need them most. And in an era of warming, fire an...

I had the pleasure of sitting down with David Bronner, the Cosmic Engagement Officer of the famed Dr Bronner’s , whose life story is as rich and foamy as the company's iconic soap. Since David became CEO of the top-selling brand of natural soaps, body care and food products in 1998, the company has grown from $4 million in revenue to well over $100 million, and all while continuing to change...